Physical Graffiti (Feb 1st Place Winner - COX )
by GenieVB
Summary: Mulder returns home one last time, to learn home can be many things...


Title: Physical Graffiti... Author: GenieVB Summary: A question of life... Rating: PG Spoilers: SUZ, Closure Legal Disclaimer: I own nothing related to the X-Files. I will make no money from any- thing related to Carter or FOX, blah, blah, and an extra BLAH!! Category: Mulder & family (& a little Scully). *For anyone who was once young and looking for any way out. You know who you are. 

* He returned to the summer house. 

It had been almost two years since he'd stepped foot in the door. Indications of recent rodent activity were apparent at the sight of tiny droppings around the base of the stove and heating vents, both long cold. 

Scully had asked him where he was going and he'd told her, adding he wouldn't be too long. 

Demons needed to be ousted, ghosts layed to rest. Hopes folded up and tucked away like old letters from a past that no longer mattered. Pictures in his mind of sister, father, mother needed to have their ashes swept aside like burnt paper. Or burnt photographs that had clearly been falsehoods. 

Smiling faces and wide open eyes, both pasted on for the person behind the camera. An illusion of "family" created for posterity. 

Mulder climbed the ladder to the loft where he and Samantha had spent many a summer night giggling or watching the water ripple under the moonlight. 

This was the last happy time of a brief childhood long ago. He sat on the edge of what had been Samantha's bed, the springs creaking under his adult weight. 

It was so tiny, the quilt patterned as it was with kittens and puppies, hand sewn by Nana's wrinkled fingers, was threadbare and faded. 

Wiping the water from his eyes, Mulder moved to his own bed and lay down on it. If he tried hard, he could remember good things, fun times. He remembered one time, Samantha bringing him her "secret". Her tiny treasure box of beach-hunt trinkets: corroded coins, a necklace with some of the beads missing, the plastic horse with the chewed off legs.. "She flies, Fox, she doesn't _need_ legs." She'd explained with all the reasonableness a six year old can possess. 

Mulder climbed down to the main floor and out to the back yard where the ocean beyond lay cold and uninviting. It was not the season for swimming or anything else and the town's tiny resort bungalows were all but deserted. 

There was her face, in its Tinkerbell features and girlish curls, right there before his eyes, floating like an soap bubble. 

Dad's face had been there too, for a long time. First as a man stern and disappointed, then flashing from one frame to the next through fear, worry, confession, remorse, repentance and, finally, bloody with a bullet hole. 

There was his mother, stern but proud, loving but mute, standing to one side and calling to him with lips that did not move and a hand stretched out with fingers blue from lack of oxygen, her face twisted in pain. 

Mulder dropped his chin to chest but no amount of stifling his voice or the aching lump in his throat prevented the grief, escaping with small gasps from the figurative hole inside him. 

This was loss, he realised. This was being an orphan, this was being without roots or faces to look back on and being able to say to yourself: that was my family, my past, where I come from and part of who I am. 

He didn't know who he was any longer. He felt part of no human unit, neither a member of the human race. His job reflected it, dealing in the unexplained, the unprovable, even the hopeless. 

He hadn't been kidding when he'd asked Skinner for time off. Mulder had been captured by a nameless fear, something to do with being. His purpose of being had come into question, falling under scrutiny and doubt. Only Scully's support had prevented him from taking an indefinite Leave of Absence. 

But because he didn't trust his own instincts when it came to genuflecting, he'd limited his time off to a long weekend and driven down to the spot where it seemed it had all begun. 

This is the place his life had taken the unexpected road. The crazy highway that had taken him ever into the future, lanes twisting this way and that, with no end in sight. 

But it had ended. 

And instead of a destination with answers, Mulder 'd found himself standing before a thick wall of deafening loss. Dead sister and very few answers. 

They were all dead and that terribly sad reality had lead him to new questions or, rather, one: 

Who he was suppose to be? If his past was nothing more than lies, then for him his future had to be understood. He _must_ know the next path because at that moment he felt like a dead a leaf in a shifting wind, lifeless and without direction. 

He was terrified of this feeling, it was a place he'd been only once or twice in his life, and this sinkhole had opened before him with frightening speed. 

He was afraid to tell Scully how deeply it went. 

How do you tell the one person, the last soul who loves you that you might not stick around because you're not certain you should _be_ around? 

On your feet but dead and buried? 

How much more wasting of life was there for him to do? 

He wanted to ask someone about it. Why had he been born anyway? What the hell was the point? 

If I wasn't even suppose to understand who and why my family had to die, Mulder thought, why bother creating me at all, God? Hey! Hello? Are you up there? 

A window slamming shut cut off further elsewhere ruminations. 

Turning to see what had caused the jarring bang, Mulder was approached by a woman or, rather, a girl approaching womanhood. She was perhaps sixteen and well on her way to knowing it all. 

"If you want to speak to the Blind Queen," the girl, her face blank and dark. (It reminded Mulder of the look - or lack thereof - of a carving of a human face, one with the features unfinished), "she's in her kingdom." 

"What?" 

But she strode passed him, her mind, it seemed, already somewhere else, slapping aside brush branches and disappearing down the sidewalk. 

"Hey!" Mulder called after the trespasser, "This is private property." 

Evidently ignoring him, he decided to give her the same treatment. 

Reminding himself to lock the sliding glass door after himself, he returned to the house. 

Wanting to check if anything had been disturbed or taken by the neighborhood teen...and himself wanting one last look- 

-it was no longer the house he had visited, not the one from moments before. 

High-heeled steps clipped-clopped back and forth in the kitchen beyond. In the background, a radio played. 

"Samantha!" 

Mulder jumped at the name and the voice behind it. 

And when the woman who had shouted out his dead sister's name came around the corner from the kitchen into the small living room where he stood, he swayed in the dream. Because it could only be that. 

He was upstairs still, lying on his old bed with the rocket ship pillow cases, dreaming this. 

His mother could not be standing before him. 

Or talking to him, as she was now. Mulder dragged his eyes away from her and her startled look to her mouth because she was addressing him. 

"I said", she was asking him a question, "are you Mister Morrison from Ready Real-Estate"? 

Mulder heard the name and saw the woman. 

There was no doubt about it. It was his mother. 

* 

"Excuse me." She said approaching him from behind. 

Mulder closed his eyes to the sight of a younger Teena Mulder and the impossible sound of his dead mother's voice, and instead concentrated on the cool early afternoon air, counting on it to clear his lungs and his senses, in particular - his mind. 

Mulder'd retreated to the back yard with the Teena-ghost in tow, willing it to go away. 

Looks like he really did need time off, he realized, if he was still seeing ghosts and still hearing the voices of the dead. It seemed, he was surrounded by them. 

"Excuse me." Ghost Teena said more insistently, the tone becoming ever less polite. It was such that he couldn't help but to turn his head and look. 

If she was a ghost she appeared solid enough. 

Something in his shocked soul must have showed on his face because her pinched lips softened, "Young man, you look ill." 

Mulder opened his mouth and though his heart was racing like a hamster on a wheel, he answered, "I have a headache. I'm sorry." 

"Well, 'Ready' said you'd be coming." 

"Yes." It conveyed neither truth nor fiction on his part, telling her not who he was but it was difficult, very, very difficult to think at that moment. 

"Did you want to take measurements?" Ghost Teena asked him, the lips returning to their drawn form at his slowness. 

"Eh, yes. Yes, I would." Mulder managed without sounding completely stupefied. 

She lead him in and to the loft ladder. "I suppose you may as well start up there." 

Thanking her, Mulder ascended the ladder again, this time feeling like a stranger in a strange land. 

The two small bedrooms had a lived-in look and feel now. There was nothing of the still life about the neatly made beds or dust free dressers. 

Several porcelain dolls sat in a row on Samantha's flowered quilt. Clothes were thrown carelessly on an upright chair. Brushes and hair bands littered the dresser top. 

His bed, however, was perfect as a pin. Not a wrinkle in the striped bed throw, not a tuck out of place in the ironed sheets. His old track and field medals from grade school were pinned (in the shape of a heart) into the wall above the headboard. On the smooth pillow lay a tiny stuffed blue fox, with a blue ribbon tied around its neck. To the knot of the ribbon was pinned a button with his picture (one of him at perhaps age six or seven), and a slogan underneath that read: "Have you seen this boy?" 

With a quick glance over the loft railing to see if the coast was still clear, Mulder returned to Samantha's room and quietly began pulling open drawers until he found what he suspected might be there. Under folded underwear (about which he felt guilty even seeing), in the bottom drawer, was a diary, much thumbed and the colors on the coated cardboard cover stained and faded. 

Pocketing it, he made a cursory look through his "own" drawers. Everything in them was perfectly folded and loving stacked in neat little bundles, so unlike the way a young boy would have things, it was clear in his mind that the young...yes, he had to let himself think it...the young Fox wasn't there and hadn't been for some time. 

Mulder could guess what was going on but only if he suspended his shock and disbelief. 

Once, he'd been on a ship,... 

... but, even so, the far more likely explanation was a twisted dream from a head fucked up with too much thought on death. 

Scully would back him up on that and the thought comforted him, her face in his mind a tonic, lessening his fear and calming his heart inside the nightmare. 

"If you're finished, we can go over the details." Ghost Teena called up to him, shaking him back to the present reality. 

Climbing down, Mulder addressed her while trying not to look at her too much. He knew it would appear as rude to his ever-proper mother, but it was tough to look at her face. 

She'd killed herself. Disease not-with-standing, she'd killed herself selfishly and without regard to how it might affect him. He hated his mother. 

Seeing her face here, younger, prettier and, (though still pinched with disapproval for most people and things around her), fresher, was playing with the rusty strings of his feelings and it hurt. It hurt, hurt, hurt! He loved his mother. 

"No. Actually, I was hoping to speak to your husband." He'd corrected himself in time for, where his mind had said "my father", his lips thankfully hadn't. 

Her face turned to stone but not because of the man standing before her. "He's not here. He's...away." 

It left no room for speculation that the man in question might return. "Not here" meant he'd left. "Away" meant he was not coming back. 

"Oh." Mulder did not let on, "Well, may I call you from the office?" 

The ghost/his mother was somewhat annoyed with him now, he'd obviously wasted her time, but good manners were her forte', "Well, whatever you think." With that she returned to her kitchen. Mulder heard wrinkling paper and dishes being stacked into boxes, the unmistakable sounds of moving preparations. 

Mulder got out of there and back to his car - the car was the same at least - and drove away. 

The streets, however, had become retro. Gardens not there in his time filled parks as he drove passed, lots that held buildings in his day were empty or dotted with benches and trees. 

Since he didn't know where he was driving, and not knowing what to expect when he arrived, Mulder returned to the ocean side neighborhood of the summer house, parking just down the street. 

He didn't know what to do though. 

Feeling guilty, he forced open the tiny lock on Samantha Mulder's diary, discovering it to be, by the date on the first page, an older one. One she had evidently written in a few years before and then tucked away from the eyes of her mother. 

Mulder noted the beginning date and entries- he couldn't help but be fascinated and thrilled (and chilled also), by the loops and whirls of the writing of the young girl who called herself Samantha Mulder, and who looked like her as well. At least, looked like a young woman his eight year old sister might have turned out to be, had she not be taken, used and discarded. 

But this was her, wasn't it? These _were_ her words, weren't they? 

Mulder read: 

*"Tuesday November 26, 1972"...* 

Mulder did a quick calculation in his head. One year after Samantha's abduction. This date was post her abduction. Ignoring the implications, and the simple impossibility of that, Mulder continued to read: 

"*Today Tommy Lewis smiled at me in math class. He is so boss! but I think he's already going steady with Laura Schroder and I HATE ("hate" was thickly underlined) "her!. 

"Mom says I can't have a boyfriend until I'm fifteen, but she doesn't know I'm already seeing Peter in secret. If Tommy and I don't end up together, I'm going to marry Peter. He's not as good looking but he's got these deep blue eyes and he's crazy about me."* 

Next entry: 

*"Oh my god!! I just met our substitute art teacher today, Mr. Olsen! He is so gorgeous. His first name is Martin and he's blonde and tanned and just gorgeous! Forget Peter AND Tommy, I want Mr. Olsen!!"* 

Mulder skipped ahead, passed more entries about the writer's school hall loves, home work and birthday parties. 

*"December 26, 1972. I don't think Santa is real. I mean, I always knew he was just a story parents tell little kids but wouldn't it have been great if he was? Maybe he could have brought Fox home for Christmas. Mom doesn't like to talk about Fox much, so since Dad left I have no one to talk with about him. He was a tease, but I miss him. Mom won't even let me play in his room at home. And I'm not allowed to touch his stuff at the cabin. Sometimes, I hate her."* 

Mulder paused to order his thoughts and take a deep breath or two, the words of the girl turning into a young woman tugged at him, pulling him more and more into her world. He was seeing his sister's, (wasn't she?) life through her eyes. If he tried hard, he could almost hear the high pitched, lost and sweet (and missed) tones of her voice in his head as his eyes eagerly sought the words. His heart was breaking all over again. 

Skipping ahead again, this time a good quarter inch worth of entries, he randomly stopped and read: 

*"July 15, 1976. I hardly ever write in this thing anymore. What's the point? No one will ever read it and no body cares what I think. Mom thinks its stupid to think Fox will ever come home. She won't" ("won't underlined three times) "talk about it. After the button campaign she refused to do anything else. It's like she doesn't want him back, like she doesn't care. Today I yelled at her I was so mad, I called her a bitch and told her that she must have not loved him then. I thought she was going to hit me and I just left to come here."* 

Mulder wondered where "here" was. 

*"Now I feel bad but I don't care. I hate school, I hate mom, I hate dad, I hate my life! I tore up the note the principal wrote so mom wouldn't see it. I skipped school and came home early so I could get it out of the mail-box. If she found out I've been smoking or trying pot, she'd kill me."* 

Mulder read the stranger's words. There were the thoughts of a girl who was unknown to him, not because they spoke of smoking and toking (things many teens try at one time or another) but because he had no idea what kind of person Samantha would have turned out to be and the words on the pages written by this young woman's hand were as plausible as any. The only thing that disturbed him were her troubled feelings so evident in the words. But didn't all teens feel like that sometimes? As if the whole world was against them? 

*"June, 1977. Mom got a call from the vice principal (the old baggy-ass!) and he spilled the beans. So I'm grounded for a month. I'm not going to obey it, of course, and she certainly doesn't care what I do. Marjorie got some for me the other night and we're gonna have a good old time at the cave once school's done..."* 

Mulder remembered it now. It was just an old cleft in the rocks not too far from the ocean. It was a place they'd made each other swear not to tell mom and dad. It was their secret hiding place and both used it as a retreat during the summer months at the ocean house. 

*"...Jason's bringing something new and say's it'll be the best trip ever. He steals it from his dad's gun cabinet. His parents are with it at least."* 

She was now about fourteen and experimenting with stronger drugs. In later entries, even fewer and farther between, the tone of the passages changed again. They were growing progressively darker: 

*"Mom's like a bloated old nun, she's so quiet and disapproving of me. She takes so many of those sleeping pills, I wonder if she recognizes me anymore. Not like she knew me anyway. Not like it matters either. Jason and me are planning to run away. We're going to go to California. He'll get a job and I'm going to act!" 

He was reading the dreams of one who wanted to escape. Kids never imagine that life beyond home can be hard and cruel. This Samantha believed life with mother was intolerable. Maybe it was, his mother had never been a warm woman, but life on the road or on the street was in most cases much worse. He wondered if this Samantha ever found that out. 

*"This is bullshit! Mom wants to sell this place! She wants us to go and live with Nana. I hardly know her. I won't leave Jason. Things are so screwed up. Mom understands nothing. She doesn't know that I love him and he loves me. She wouldn't understand. She thinks just because I'm young, that I don't know what love is. Jason and I talked about a death pact. Not that we'd DO" ("do" underlined three times) "it, but it's nice to know he loves me that much, that he'd go down into death with me. We even used mom's pills (I stole one of the bottles, she'll never miss it, she has dozens!) in a "pretend" run through. I think Fox (if he isn't alive in this world) must be in some other one. wouldn't it be cool to be able to go there. Except could you get back?"* 

Questions and no answers. The entries after that were darker still and spoke of some un-named thing that frightened her. 

*"Jason says it's my" ("my" heavily circled) "fault! He won't even speak to me now. How am I going to tell mom? I can't. I can't. Even if I did, that'd be it, I'd be out. I hate everything!" 

*"Cynthia says she knows a way to stop it but I'm scared. What if something goes wrong? In a month, mom gets some money from Nana and I can use that to go to a clinic (steal it!), but will they let me have it done without my mom knowing? I don't know what to do. I wish Fox were here (even if he came home for a moment - even if he appeared before me now, I'd go with him)."* 

*"P.S.: That's the first time I've thought of Fox in such a long time. Sometimes it seems like he never existed, like he was just some weird dream I had when I was a kid. Sometimes I wish I was just a dream. I wish I never existed. Sometimes, I wish it had been me." 

They were the sincere but ignorant words of a youth consumed by her own need and pain. Wrapped up in both, wearing them like a security blanket and oblivious to the cold pain of those around her, even her remaining parent. 

*"Jan, 1977. Mom keeps asking me why I "mope around". I don't mope. I'm hiding myself - IT - from her now. But how much longer before she notices?" 

"Mom still hasn't figured it out. I'm getting fat and its like I don't exist. What do I have to do to be real to her? What do I have to do to get the hell out of this goddamn life?! 

P.S: I'm doing it more and more, I don't know how to stop."* 

Flipping the page, there was a gap of another month between the last entry and the next. Here, the writing had become fast and furious, the lettering ranging from tall and stately (reaching) to strings of strung together consonants (some of the T's crossed so ferociously, the paper was torn) and open, unfinished vowels, it was in places nearly illegible: 

*"I have no questions. I'm only a traveler in this existence. I shall pass along soon. I will go my way, my course over the thresh-hold from life to life and never think of this place again. I am a stain of blood on the wall, I'm paint on the staircase banister, I'm scented oil spilled in a fit of rage. There is no place for me anymore and I shall pass on. I will say no goodbyes to those dwellers of earth who sit still, mute and blind to the truth of futility. I will leave them only these words. 

Physical Graffiti 

"Kashmir" 

Whoa, let the sun beat down upon my face And stars to fill my dream I am a traveler of both time and space To be where I have been T' sit with elders of a gentle race This world is seldom seen Th' talk of days for which they sit and wait; All will be revealed 

Talk and song from tongues of lilting grace Whose sounds caress my ear But not a word I heard could I relate The story was quite clear Whoa-hoh, whoa-wa-oh 

Oooh, oh baby, I been flyin' Lord, yeah, mama, there ain't no denyin' Oh, oooh yes, I've been flying Mama, mama, ain't no denyin', no denyin' 

Oh, all I see turns to brown As the sun burns the ground And my eyes fill with sand As I scan this wasted land Tryin' to find, tryin' to find where I belooong 

Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace Like thoughts inside a dream Heed the path that led me to that place Yellow desert scream My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon; I will return again Sure as the dust that floats high in June When movin' through Kashmir 

Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails Across the sea of years With no provision but an open face 'Long the straits of fear 

Goodbye, MOTHER" ("mother" in red, bold print), "I hope you find what I couldn't give you. I know I will find Fox. I know we will be at peace. 

Love Samantha."* 

There were no more entries and Mulder, feeling a little sick to his stomach, closed the book. 

A shadow passed by the passenger side window, blocking out the sun and sending a chill through him. 

He got out of the car and saw her - the girl he had seen earlier - walking away down the sidewalk, clutching something in her arms. She turned off and headed across the grass, away from the winding lane and towards the strip of bush and trees that lead to the ocean front. 

Mulder thought he knew where Samantha was headed. 

But when he followed her, stepping into the shadows of the bushes, she was no where to be seen. 

Mulder headed to the small, rocky outcropping that contained the cleft he knew was there. 

Arriving, the entrance was much narrower than he remembered, but then he was much larger these days. 

It was damp and smelled of rotting leaves. Mulder pulled out his tiny key chain flashlight and played it around the walls of the cave. He saw their old rock table, an old petrified tree trunk and Samantha's old doll dishes, now scattered by animals, some of them cracked. Seeing them reminded him of one time he'd found her there. It was after one of their parents frequent verbal battles. Samantha was playing with her flying horse and her little jewel box of trinkets, laying open on the tiny ledge where she kept it. 

Mulder reached down to that tiny shelf (everything had shrunk) and there it was, the top warped from the damp. In it was revealed various and sundry items of a young girl's jewelry box and things a rebellious teenager would possess, roach clips (the feathers matted with dirt), and a small pot pipe. 

The legless horse with the white angel hair mane wasn't there. 

He sat on the old log and it rolled out from under him. When Mulder turned to see why it suddenly decided to dislodge after all those years of solid service, he saw a small shred of cloth sticking up through the dirt. 

He dug, his hands brushing away the hard earth, unwrapping the thing in his hands. 

Tiny baby bones. New born. 

Swaying slightly, Mulder returned to the house, intending he didn't know what. There is where whatever was happening had begun (and if he had fallen asleep and was dreaming, he wanted to try and wake up in the same spot). And he wanted this ended now. 

But things had changed once more. 

The ghost of Teena Mulder, still as solid looking as he felt, was no longer packing up things in the kitchen. She was standing in the back yard, dressed in a plain black dress and overcoat, staring out over the water. 

"Mrs. Mulder?" 

She didn't hear him. 

When a figure stepped out of the house and up to her, Mulder had the urge to scream and pull his gun. 

"Beautiful service, Teena. Very nice." 

Teena didn't look at him. "I'm having her buried beside Poppa." 

"I'm sure that's what she would want." 

"Well?" Teena said to him, after a moments silence. 

"Teena, you know I can't." 

Now she turned to him. "What do I have to do to get him back?" 

"Fox is in good hands." 

Mulder had the urge to run up to him and make him eat his glowing cigarette. 

Suddenly Teena reached out and slapped his face hard. "I didn't expect to lose BOTH children!" 

"Samantha's...accident was tragic, but neither of us expected it, and it has nothing to do with The Work." He, ignoring her anger and assault, took her hand. "Teena, please. Come stay with me. It would make everything so much easier." 

"No. No! NONONONO!" She wrenched her hand away. "I know he's dead! You lying, murdering, fiend!" 

The Smoking Man stepped toward her. "Teena! You mustn't believe that!" 

""A few years" you said. "A few years", and it's been ten!" 

Deciding to divulge some truth, "You know it had to be done!" 

Teena drew something from her pocket and aimed it at him and Mulder saw his face go white. 

"My son is gone. My daughter died in a hospital without me! She bled to death and I wasn't there. She had a baby and I didn't even know!" Tears were shooting from her eyes like sparks, as she beat her chest with each revelation of her grief. Then she pulled the trigger and Cancer Man crumpled to the ground without a word. And before Mulder could utter a sound, she put it's muzzle against her heart and pulled it again. 

Mulder ran toward her but no matter how fast he ran, he couldn't reach her. As fast as he ran, that's how fast she receeded, finally fading from sight. 

"Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee" A child's laughter from behind made him stop and look back. 

Samantha was running across the grass towards the beach. 

He followed her. 

She stopped at the waters edge and looked back at him, looking right at him. Giggling, a child Samantha, a little girl of eight, stretched out her hand and showed him the little brown plastic horse with the missing legs and the white angle mane. 

"See, Fox. She doesn't need legs. You don't need legs when you can fly." 

He no longer knew what was real and what was dream. Or maybe he was going mad. All things being equal, it was the simplest explanation. "I don't know what to do." He hadn't thought he'd said it aloud until she answered him. 

"Heed the path that led you to here." She said. 

Mulder looked up from the grass and saw his sister, the young woman who had brushed passed him, who had retreated to the cave and disappeared. The woman he had never known. 

"Heed the path that led you here, Fox." 

"Who are you?" It couldn't be the real Samantha, he said to himself, She's gone, dead in a hospital, gone from his arms, now dust, years ago. A life time ago. It's a ghost or a dream or my own mind wasting away, he thought. 

"I want to be a traveler of both time and space. I know you and you seem to know me. But why are we here together?" 

She disappeared from him and Mulder, thinking that he'd finally cracked, let his eyes cry for Samantha or Samantha's ghost, for his mother, and for himself. 

Maybe he _was_ just a traveler in their world. 

Mulder walked back to his car, not looking at the house, not thinking about his sister or parents. Not believing. 

But not disbelieving either. It was not unusual to see ghost images after the death of a close family member. 

It _was_ unusual to talk to them however. 

Mulder got in his car and drove in the direction of home, deciding to sell the property and leave spirits behind. 

* 

"So, there's a theory that other dimensions can pass into our own. That beings, people and creatures from other plains of existence can enter ours for short periods of time, even interacting with realities in this one, that even we at times can pass into theirs, not being able to influence that time or reality but view it, seeing events occurring in the past, present or future, and that we can even for fractions of moments, instantaneous to us but occurring in real time to them, pass into our own parallel universes, being seen by our own counterparts as images, smells, sounds." 

Scully stared across the diner table at her partner, his speech jerking her from the lazy doll drums of a work-a-day lunch. She was given no opportunity to get in a single word as he continued. 

"And that these moments, as some philosophies advocate, are induced by extreme emotional states. Poltergiests are said to appear for the same reason, powerful emotions causing a state of electric charge - a conduit if you will - between worlds. But we...we _enter_ other stages and become witnesses to our own alternate lives. We become two people in two different realities, able to learn one from the other or simply for the purpose of a greater understanding of our own." 

Scully nodded. "Huh." She said, neither committing to it nor completely doubting. Allowing, however, a hint of mild curiosity. It was the first time in weeks he'd uttered more than a few words at once, his sister's memorial service had weighed upon him, bowing his shoulders. But it was as if he had shrunk not in size but in spirit. 

He hadn't offered any explanation to her, either, regarding the tiny cream colored urn, sitting near his sister's pink framed picture. 

It had bore no name. 

"Scully. Have you ever wondered what it would have been like if your father hadn't died?" 

Scully raised her eyebrows and finished chewing her bite of BLT. "You mean, would he have influenced me? Would I be a different person or in a different place right now?" 

He nodded. "Well, I can speculate but, really, there's no way of knowing. There is that theory that every possibility gets played out in alternate realities, as you said. That each decision not made in this one is made in an "else time" and that there are millions of such realities." She offered. 

"You believe that?" 

She wondered if he did. "It's just a theory, Mulder, and one I doubt mankind will ever be able to test." 

"Maybe we're just paintings in someone else's universe. Maybe we're thoughts in the minds of ghosts. Maybe we are _their_ ghosts." He seemed subdued again, pensive, idly playing with his cold french fries. He muttered something so quietly she'd hardly heard but it had sounded like: "It has to be." 

She did not want him sinking back into silent melancholy. 

"Do you wish things had been different, Mulder?" 

Shaking his head, a trifle movement at best, "Yes and no. I wish Samantha hadn't been taken. I wish she wasn't dead but...maybe she isn't, really. Maybe she's alive in some other way. Maybe memories or-or dreams are more real than we think." 

"I like to think," Scully said, "that, for me, _this_ reality is the right one." She added. "The idea that everything would have happened for the better if only..." she shook her head. "Life is a gamble anywhere, in any time, isn't it?" 

"Do you think you would have stayed with the X Files?" 

He'd lost his parents, his sister and his hope. Maybe he was thinking it should have been him. 

She took his hand. "Mulder, in this reality, I'm here." Squeezing his fingers tight, "And so are you. Feels right to me." 

** 

END 

GenieVB genyah@hotmail.com 


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